This is a quietly demanding novel: slow, meandering, and deliberately ambiguous, but also rich in detail, characterisation, and it’s oh so beautifully written.
Plot in a Nutshell
Mnemosyne, known as Memory, is an albino woman incarcerated in a high-security Zimbabwean prison, awaiting execution for the murder of her adopted father, Lloyd, a white man. The novel takes the form of a series of journals she is writing for a Western journalist interested in her case. Through these, she recounts her childhood in a township outside Harare, how she came to live with Lloyd, fragments of that life together, and her present-day existence in prison. All of this unfolds against the backdrop of Zimbabwe’s profound social and political shifts at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century.
Thoughts
This is not a pacey or action-driven book. Much of the novel consists of Memory sifting through her recollections, early childhood, prison routines, moments of dislocation and reflection, and through that process exploring race, disability, memory, and family. The structure is resolutely non-linear, looping repeatedly between childhood, life with Lloyd, and prison. That felt convincing. It’s the voice of an intelligent, educated woman who has been denied writing materials for over two years and is finally allowed to set her thoughts down. However it also makes the narrative feel disjointed at times, and the thread of the story can be hard to hold onto.
Gappah writes in English but weaves in a significant amount of Shona. While this adds texture and authenticity, it sometimes disrupts the flow, particularly where translations are not provided. Similarly, the novel introduces a large cast of fellow prisoners and prison-specific terms. Few of these figures feel essential, and early on I found myself expending more effort than reward trying to keep them straight – a confusion not helped by the absence of any character list.
Where the novel really came alive for me was in Memory’s reflections on local mythology and folktales, particularly those tied to her mother’s beliefs. These passages have a quiet warmth. I was also very taken with Memory as a reader: the chapter in which she explores Lloyd’s library and uses books to steady herself in a new and uncertain life is charming and emotionally persuasive. . Lloyd himself feels like a tantalisingly underexplored character.
Running subtly beneath everything is the colonial history of Rhodesia and the early years of Zimbabwe. Gappah doesn’t foreground this or over-explain it; there is an expectation of some prior knowledge, or at least a willingness to sit with partial understanding. I found this aspect fascinating.
Overall, I enjoyed the book, but with reservations. I would have welcomed less emphasis on the minutiae of prison life and more sustained attention to Memory’s relationship with Lloyd, or to her experiences outside Zimbabwe and how those shaped her perspective.